Applications are open for Start – Up, a free 10 week course for 18 – 35 year old’s where students learn by setting up a community enterprise in a team.

Starting April 23rd, students will work on a challenge to set up an initiative inspired by the Frome mens SHED. Our new initiative aims to bring young adults together to connect to others whilst making products, crafts and art in the Remakery workshop.

The idea of this new Edventure start up is to:

Provide an inclusive and welcoming space for all forms of creativity and productivity.

Support mental health – we know that things like depression and anxiety are helped through connecting to others, being a part of something and keeping busy in positive ways.

Give people a platform to begin selling things they make and moving towards a meaningful livelihood.

Provide an ongoing, regular activity at Edventure for anyone aged 18 – 35 including past MAKE and Start – Up students.

The Frome mens SHED is based in the building where we run our Edventure courses.

Through coming together to do practical activities, SHED members meet others and get to feel a part of something.

“Mens SHEDs are community spaces for men to connect, converse and create. The activities are often similar to those of garden sheds, but for groups of men to enjoy together. They help reduce loneliness and isolation, but most importantly, they’re fun”.

The Frome SHED has inspired us to set up an equivalent for young adults. The student team will research young people’s needs locally as well as similar projects in other places. With this information they will design and set up a weekly event.

We imagining that during these events our community workshop and co-working space will be filled with people doing things like woodwork, metal-work, clothing upcycling, screen printing and painting.

Although the initiative will not be directly focussed on mental health, we would like it to support mental health. Most people through their lifetimes experience some form of mental health challenge, in particular young people. We would like this space to be somewhere where people can be open about what is really going on for them in their lives.

Edventure also wants to support people to create livelihoods that matter to them and we know that there are many young people who dream of making an income selling the things they have made. Part of the students team challenge will be to find avenues for the makers to sell their creations.

Through this challenge, students will get the opportunity to go through the stages of setting up a social business – from market research to business planning, from generating ideas to project planning, branding and launching the idea. All of this whilst learning to work in a team and step into leadership.

We are looking for 18 – 35 year olds who are up for a challenge and want to make this idea happen. To find out more and to apply click here. If you’re interested in this project and would like to get involved in other ways please email [email protected]

“As we shift to the post-industrial economy new types of businesses will succeed, new types of leader will take charge and a new world will emerge. Hold onto your hats… it is going to be a wild ride… and we are all part of the change that is happening”.

We are glad and grateful to be part of that wild ride and we’d like to invite you to join us. Our upcoming initiatives are all themed around the new economy that’s emerging. We can all participate in helping to create the kind of world we want to live in. As the article says

“These extraordinary times call for each and every one of us to stand up and do what we can for our home planet”

Please join us.

All the best, Edventure: Frome

Tackling the Big Issues Together

We’re looking for people who want to actively transform their local economy. If you have ideas and want to get involved with tackling the big issues facing our planet, then please join us for this trio of short-courses hosted by deeply experienced activists…

The New Economy in Practice
Tue 5 Feb: Explore ways to draw on our existing skills, knowledge &
connections to build the practical initiatives required to face the
ecological, economic and social challenges of the 21st Century. With Tim
Crabtree of Schumacher College.

Edventure Facilitation & Course Design
Tue 4 & Wed 5 Mar: Our action learning approach is rooted in our
local community. This is for people who would like to do similar work in
their communities, either by replicating our work or using our learning
as a building block to design their own courses and initiatives. With
Johannes Moeller, Edventure Co-Founder and MD.

Become Part of an Edventure Team

Gain skills and experience to step towards a livelihood that matters to you, and learn how to trackle the issues you care about.

23 Apr-27 Jun: 10 students – 10 weeks – 1 challenge – to set up a community enterprise. (Watch a typical challenge in the video below). Our course in community entrepreneurship is about turning ideas into reality. It’s free & part-time.

18 Mar – 8 Apr: 3 weeks from the woods to the market. Learn to MAKE ethical products with your hands using green wood. And learn how to make a making business. (Watch a short intro in this video). Its free & part-time.

Experience Edventure for Real or on TV!

We’re working to grow enterprises & initiatives as part of a sustainable economy that works for all…and to support others to do the same. Here’s a couple of simple ways to learn more about our work…

Edventure: Tour
Join us for a walking tour of our local initiatives. Meet our team, ask
anything you like and get honest, warts and all answers! Continuing
chat afterwards over lunch at The Good Heart. Valued connections were
made at our last tour – we’re looking forward to seeing who we’ll meet
next!

BBC Countryfile: Please watch us on Countryfile Diaries in Feb. Jen Gale
visits BBC Countryfile presenter Paul Hewitt and does a sustainable
lifestyle audit on his home. She brings him to several Edventure
projects find creative alternatives for items that would otherwise end
up in landfill. As soon as we have the final date, we’ll announce it here

Come to our Local Sharing Community Events

Our local initiatives are designed to help create a stronger, more resilient, sharing community.

﻿SHARE Repair & Upcycle Cafe
Sun 10 Feb: Bring your broken things. Our volunteers fix them and share
their skills with you. You take your items back home. Together we
prevent things from going to landfill; save money; learn new skills;
make connections with like-minded local peeps; drink tea and eat cake!

The Frome Wardrobe Collective
Sat 16 Mar: A sustainable, affordable and ethical alternative to high
street retailers – get a whole new wardrobe instead, for the price of a
cup of coffee! Dig out last years jeans and get ready to swap till you
drop – there’ll be food, music and community spirit!

But how about the young adults who have come on our courses or received mentoring – what difference has made Edventure to them? We commissioned Lauren Goodey to follow up with students from the past year, and interview them. We were particularly interested to hear if and how we support students to step towards a livelihood that matters to them – which is our aim. Here are some of her findings:

%

said Edventure helped them to step towards a livelihood that matters to them. 16.7% said they were not sure. 5.5% said Edventure did not help.

%

were in employment, self-employment or in the process of starting up 3 month+ after the course

Help us do more of our work please!

A quick tangent and unashamed plug: We have a good chance to win 18k to help finance our FREE courses for next year. Can you spare two minutes and vote for us here? Just click below, select the South West, Select Edventure Frome & click vote. All you’ll need to do is to put in your email address.

We were of course also interested in what we do that helps students to step towards a livelihood that matters to them. Here some soundbites of what students said:

“Inspiration and support to create a meaningful livelihood”,

“Using Edventure as evidence of work experience” “support from the Edventure staff, opportunities”

“Confidence in what is possible to do in three weeks”

“Reflections on creating ethical business”

“using the Edventure hub space”

“Learning about starting-up”

“encouragement to take on leadership”

“learning how to work with others”

“A sense of moving forward”

“feeling accepted and welcome, making great friends, self reflection”

“Introduction to community in Frome”

“meeting new people including people running local businesses”

“learning innovation and coming up with ideas”

“marketing and branding, experience in leadership”

“Financially accessible, life changing, exploring life purpose”

And finally some numbers to quantify this: Between Sep 2017 and Aug 2018, we supported 76 young adults through our main courses and 1-to-1 support. With our student teams we created the Frome Remakery and set up Edspace Living Ltd. In addition, we have run 10 short courses for 160 adults, and had a total of 8223 users of our initiatives, including 1049 attendees of our community events.

Simon Williams resigned from his voluntary, non-executive position on the Edventure Board of Directors as of Tuesday 12th March 2019.

Simon served Edventure with great skill, knowledge and integrity. At no point during his involvement did we have any concerns about his behaviour, or his motivation to be part of our organisation. To clarify, Edventure has no link with Universal Medicine.

We would like to thank Simon for helping Edventure make a positive difference in our community.